


snowflakes and gold

by sh0tar1s



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Crying, First Meetings, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Time Skip, Pro Volleyball Player Hinata Shouyou, Pro Volleyball Player Sakusa Kiyoomi, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:49:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28518906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sh0tar1s/pseuds/sh0tar1s
Summary: They say everybody has a soulmate.Before you meet them though, you get an overwhelming sensation that overpowers the rest. If you're always happy, you'll feel sad when you meet your soulmate. If you're always itching, you'll feel relieved finally meeting the one you were destined to be with.Well it's been 22 years and Sakusa is about to freeze to death if his soulmate doesn't hurry the hell up.or: Sakusa can only feel cold and he just wants to see his soulmate already
Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou/Miya Atsumu, Hinata Shouyou/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 21
Kudos: 296





	snowflakes and gold

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy

Sakusa has been told all his life that one day, some day, he won't have to wear so many layers.

One day, his soulmate would make their entrance into his life. They'd wash over his body like a ray of sunshine, finally giving him the sweet relief of warmth. 

But at 17 years old, all he's felt is the cold. Excruciating, fingertip bruising, lip cracking, cold.

He's not the only one.

According to his mother and just about everybody in the world, you are given one feeling, physical or emotional, your entire life until you meet your soulmate. Maybe you're born sad, you'll stay like that til you meet your soulmate and when you do, those new feelings will blossom. Sakusa would say that one is bearable although if you don't meet your soulmate at all, you die without having felt a single other thing but complete sorrow. That was unlucky.

Although that was definitely one of the worst ones, Sakusa would say he had it bad too. Actually, he had it really bad.

While it would suck to die sad, imagine living everyday being incredibly cold and not being able to do a single thing about it, including how often you end up in a hospital.

If you're born cold and you happen to be too far from your soulmate, don't expect to live past 5. It'll be an awful 5 years. You are born freezing, pale as snow, and then those torturous years you spend shivering will be for nothing when you fail to unite with your one and only and die because your heart has frozen over.

Now that, that fucking sucks.

Of course, Sakusa was stuck in a situation like this.

His entire life he's spent it shivering, his teeth clattering in the quiet of a classroom, earning pitiful and annoyed glances from everyone. At stores, when he would sneeze and start trembling harder, everyone could see and point it out even if they understood his situation. Of maybe just people seeing him with multiple layers, the gloves, the facemask that keeps his nose warm and blue lips covered, they'd wince at the sight if any of it was taken off.

He fucking hated crowds. Fuck them all.

He's been in and out of hospitals so often he lost track of it all, which was actually disgusting because he hated those places. Not only were there sick people, there were sick CRYING people. If there's anything he hated more than crowds, it was people crying, not because he felt bad but because it irritates his ears. 

Definitely, if his soulmate cried when they met, he'd want a whole different soulmate. He lost track of how many times he thought that was in a hospital.

Actually, he lost track of how many times he's thought about meeting his soulmate in general.

If it was his choice, Sakusa would gladly sprint over to them with closed eyes.

-

It was the Nationals during his second year of highschool, his team was just about to play against another but Sakusa was too busy rubbing at his wrists from the itchiness of his gloves. When have they gotten so uncomfortable?

"Oi! Kiyoomi!" He turned to see Motoya running at him, waving a hand in the air. In response, he grunted. There his teammate was, annoying him at a time when he was annoyed most. Fuck these gloves.

"Are you ready to go play?!" Motoya stopped right in front of him. 

Without waiting for a response, his cousin snatched his arm and sprinted with Sakusa trailing behind. Of course, it earned a hiss from the cold boy and he ripped free from the iron grip, hugging his easily bruised arm to his chest.

Motoya gasped and turned back, covering his mouth with his hand, "I'm sorry! I forgot! Does it hurt?"

Before Sakusa could easily draw out a "no shit", he pulled back on the sleeve of his volleyball jacket to show Motoya what he did, how fucked up his arm looked now since his skin bruised easily and that's why under any circumstance, nothing should touch Sakusa except volleyball because AT LEAST that was worth it.

That explanation however wouldn't come, not when the bruising was so, so small you basically couldn't even see it.

"Huh?!" Sakusa felt his eyes bulge out his head as he further inspected his arm, checking both sides of his forearm. He shoved it in front of Motoya's dumbfounded face, getting closer to someone than usual but not caring because...what the hell?

"Look. Where is the…" His sentence trailed off as suddenly, his scarf was a bit too much. After carefully loosening it and inhaling deeply, he waited for his cousin's reaction. Motoya just stared at him like an idiot.

"Kiyoomi…"

Sakusa raised an eyebrow.

"Can I touch your arm again?"

Sakusa almost bit his head off and retracted his arm only for his stupid teammate to pull it back, feeling with both overly disgusting hands. Sakusa almost threw up then and there.

"You're not as cold as usual!" Motoya stared up with wide eyes, his eyebrows reaching his hairline. Sakusa, in contrast, pressed his eyebrows together and snatched back his arm out of Motoya's grasp.

"What? No, I'm cold," he kept touching his arm, feeling it with every finger to test out all possibilities.

"But not as much as usual!"

Sakusa felt some sort of feeling brew in him, somewhat close to anxiety. Could it be?

But…

He's still so cold.

Even if he's wearing less layers the last 3 days...he's still cold.

-

The closer they got to the end of their match, the less blue his forearms became. The ball slamming onto his arms didn't leave a mark as dark, as purple or red. Falling over didn't make his back hurt from his frozen spine bending a little too much. His wrists bent even further than usual. To say Sakusa was panicking was an understatement.

Maybe on the outside he looked stoic, collected, calm. To the crowd, he was probably looking quite confident. On the inside? He was ready to die.

Why? Why was he not as cold? He was still freezing and the clatter of his teeth disturbed those around him. (for fucks sake- he can't help it!) But at the same time, his teeth didn't nearly hurt as much as usual when they'd clank together. But WHY? WHY did it change so suddenly?

Could it really be?

While playing the match, barely paying attention half the time, he thought about just who it could be in here. There were so, so many people. It's not like he could go up to everyone and just ask to be closer to them to see if he got warm. Sure many people had his problem of being so cold around the world, but it's not exactly normal to do that either way. Many thoughts clouded his mind. 

It only barely processed in him that as soon as their match was 23- 20, the coldness was back. With a sharp inhale, Sakusa watched his arms form bruises in the shape of someones nasty fingerprints along with the print of a volleyball's material forming lines in the bruises. He shivered.

Dammit.

By the end of the match, when they lost, Sakusa was sprinting to put on his clean shirt, sweater, jacket, thick pants, double socks, boots, scarf, and mask. It was all back to normal just like that.

"Did you hear?" Motoya appeared at his side, wiping down his forehead with a towel. Damn him for being able to feel hot.

Sakusa shrugged, "hear what?"

"Someone almost passed out from a fever!" 

And then Sakusa frowned a bit, "who?'

"Karasuno's number 10," Motoya set down the towel and took a sip from his water. "Hinata Shouyou? Something like that. It's a shame."

That night when he laid awake in bed, recounting what he could've done better in the match, how he could've focussed better than he did despite the very groundbreaking distraction.

He shivered like usual, his hands clad in thick black gloves with his feet wearing matching thick socks, the blanket over him doing very little to help the cold.

It appears there were quite a few stories of soulmates meeting each other, so many people finally experiencing a new feeling.

Sakusa too. For just a moment, it wasn't that cold back there.

Hinata Shouyou...he got a fever...from what Sakusa heard from Motoya who heard from a dude named Daishou who heard from some guy called Kuroo who heard from...some dude named Kenma? Hinata Shouyou suffered with the feeling of nothing but warmth.

Sakusa would say he envies him if he didn't know how much it sucks to feel one thing for so long. It probably sucks being so warm, even if it would be blissful to himself.

Hinata Shouyou...if he got sick, did he meet his soulmate? 

If Sakusa had looked, would he have finally found the one who could lift this freezing burden?

-

Turns out he definitely should've fucking done that. Here he was at 22 years old, seeing fucking snowflakes form on his body more and more everyday. That wasn't all!

His hair has gained similar snowflakes, lining the black strands with its intricate designs and making the illusion that he had partly white hair. His skin had started to stick from how frozen it got, even masks were difficult to wear now as the fabric would just get stuck to his blue lips or icy cheeks. If his teeth clattered loudly before, well, now they sounded like glass. How was this even possible?

His soulmate was far, far away. So far, that Sakusa almost died. Yes, died.

Hypothermia was a bitch and it almost froze his heart, requiring some emergency surgery to be done and lots of heavy monitoring when he was 21. He had to take a short break from the black jackals.

That time leading up to it had been excruciating. The snowflakes on his hair came first, it happened one morning when he had turned 20 just 10 days before it. At first he thought it was a coming of age sort of thing, maybe this soulmate stuff was that stupid. 

The skin happened so quickly that Sakusa screamed when he woke up to see he was so pale he might as well be transparent, the snowflakes only added to his new found creepy look.

Besides his appearance, the pain that came alongside the new pains. If hospital visits piled before, now it was annual. Considering everyone's state in the world, how people always waited for their soulmate, physical activity didn't affect it, just the fact his soulmate is far away. Too far.

All he wanted was for the pain to stop. For someone to unfreeze this heart of his. He just wanted his soulmate close to him.

When Sakusa recovered and came back, still freezing all over but better, the pitiful looks he garnered made him want to slam his head into a freezer and torture himself just a little more than he already was being completely demolished by this life.

Atsumu, who had found his soulmate in highschool, gave him a tight smile of what was supposed to be encouragement. Sakusa scowled back.

The rest of the team had found their soulmates already besides Tomas, who felt nothing but anxiety, (wow soulmate consequences fucking suck.) and then there was Inunaki who felt nothing but confidence. (literally fuck off.)

Sakusa decided that he'd make it through even if his soulmate was gone.

Every night he tried to convince himself that. A smaller part of him couldn't believe it though.

For 2 years he's been watching these snowflakes move around his entire body, growing bigger or smaller and spinning and turning every second. It's like watching a movie.

At this point, he's had to push himself so hard in volleyball he almost broke his back and just about busted a lung.

"You might have to get off the team," Meian had told him with that apologetic smile of his. "You shouldn't have to hurt yourself for volleyball."

That's not what this is about. Sakusa hated to be reckless but he couldn't let the fact that he had yet met his soulmate get in the way of his passions. According to his doctor, he was actually incredibly healthy besides the fucking cold curse. The only physical, somewhat straining thing he does is play volleyball after all, it's just one thing.

The concern went on for a while until the snowflakes stopped moving.

"WOAH!" Bokuto's loud voice interrupted Sakusa's serve. 

He rolled his eyes, letting the ball drop and his body droop with it, "what?"

Before Bokuto could say anything, Atsumu gasped like an idiot and came rushing at him. (Of course Sakusa moved to the side and avoided a crash landing.) 

"Your skin!"

"Huh?"

Bokuto pointed at his exposed arms and legs, jumping up and down like a little kid and giggling like an idiot to rival Atsumu when he sees puppies. No wonder they're soulmates.

Bokuto only felt softness all the time before, not being able to feel how hard a volleyball truly was. Atsumu only felt goo, like everything was constantly melting. So you see, when they got together it was basically like molding together into one and creating one big fucking idiot. That's romance.

Sakusa took a step back from the team as they all came to look around, Tomas cowering behind them all, of course. With a raised eyebrow, Sakusa took one look at his arm and stopped breathing.

They're…

"IT'S NOT MOVING!" Atsumu held his head in his hands, a large smile taking over his features. Bokuto swung an arm around his partner, still jumping excitedly and cheering for Sakusa who remained frozen, looking stupidly at his arm.

"Your soulmate," Meian smiled and clapped a hand on his back, earning a death glare from Sakusa and then retreating his hand in apology. "Your soulmate must be near!"

"OHO!" The combined dumbass duo of the team both shouted out and began to bombard the overwhelmed spiker who continued to stare at his forearm in disbelief.

"YOU KNOW WHO IT MIGHT BE?!"

"YA EXCITED OR WHAT?!"

"COME ON, COME ON, DO YOU KNOW!?"

"NO!" Sakusa bit back and picked up the volleyball, ignoring the team's stares at his back as he chose to ignore the unmoving snowflakes.

"I have no clue, okay?"

-

But oh, he knew a week after that.

"Okay guys," Coach Foster clapped his hands for MSBY's attention. They gathered quickly, Sakusa moving quicker than usual now that the cold wasn't weighing down his feet as much. Granted his hair was still white-ish, his skin still pale as shit. But, it was...better. 

It absolutely has to be, right?

"What's up, coach?" Atsumu leaned on his boyfriend, Bokuto, as the taller man ruffled his hair and placed a firm kiss on the other's sweaty temple. Ew.

Coach Foster ignored the two lovebirds, side eyeing their PDA. See? This is why Sakusa's still on the team, the coach has his brain cells.

"Anyways," the grey haired man cleared his throat, puffed out his chest, and beamed. "You will be having a new teammate!"

Excited chatter filled the gym, everyone high fiving-well, almost everyone. Sakusa stood there with his eyes wide.

Why...was...his hair...dripping..?

Drop by drop, water began to fall on his face and on the gym floor. Everyone stopped the commotion once they saw Sakusa practically melting in front of them, his skin turning a little pink instead of its usual pale blue complexion. 

"O-Omi-Omi?" Atsumu called to him but Sakusa couldn't reply, he only continued to stare at his forearms which started to slowly un-bruise from volleyball practice. His fingertips, which were blue, began to turn a normal shade.

"Sakusa?" Inunaki tried to gain his attention to no avail, no one could grab his attention when he was starting to shake.

There's no way…

There's no way! You're lying!

"Uhm," Coach Foster chuckled nervously. "Here's your uhm...new teammate."

And when the door opened, Sakusa finally looked up.

And my, it was like taking your first breath of air.

There before him stood a golden man with hair in shades of flames of fire. His eyes, dripping with honey in its hazel containment, pierced into Sakusa's soul. The man's freckles laid over his cheeks like stars, like carefully crafted diamonds. Under his eye, a burn mark seemed to be disappearing the longer they stared.

Sakusa couldn't even look down. He couldn't.

This man. He's seen him.

At Nationals. The one who got sick.

"Hinata Shouyou," he breathed out, feeling a warmth explode in his cheeks for the first time in his life. He shuddered.

"Sakusa Kiyoomi?" The redhead took a step forward, his feet trembling as he almost fell from the disbalance.

And it was like looking at the first ray of sunlight in the morning.

The team made space for the two, backing away enough to hear and see them but not get in the way. After all, two soulmates were about to unite.

Something Sakusa never expected he would do is shiver at the feeling of warmth, and he shocked himself when it happened. For once, his fingers were a nice naturally pale shade rather than porcelain which he grew accustomed to. He could still feel the wetness of his curly hair, but that didn't even matter.

Because there was Hinata Shouyou, staring at him with those wide, golden brown eyes and then sighing, hugging his body against himself.

"Ah, that feels better," Hinata smiled gently, looking up at Sakusa through teary eyes and his lip quivering.

And Sakusa, who never thought he'd do this either, choked on his words, "w-warm..."

There were many times when Sakusa dreamed he'd finally be able to stand without being in pain from the cold. When he finally met his soulmate, he'd stand proud and he'd stand tall. They'd smile at each other, and they'd finally feel the sweet relief of a feeling other than what they were cursed with.

Sakusa didn't think he'd barely be able to stand when he finally met his soulmate. He didn't think he'd sound so stupid.

They locked eyes, and without saying a word, without even a hint, they sprinted at each other.

When Sakusa's arms finally wrapped around the one who stole the cold away, who lifted the burden off his shoulders, it was like coming home. Like finally breathing after suffocating for only a minute and yet needing that sweet relief of a first breath.

It was like drowning for years, only given a bubble that would burst any second, and then being pulled back up by your saviour to a whole new world.

His arm muscles came loose at the feeling of heat, the sensation of Hinata touching them.

Hinata wrapped his arms around Sakusa's Shoulders, his chest pressing flat against his. Sakusa couldn't be imagining the wet stains on his chest from where this short person was crying, and he couldn't be imagining the shake of the younger's shoulders. 

If it was anyone else, Sakusa would kill them. He hated when people cried.

But for the first time, Sakusa's frozen heart melted at the feeling of someone crying near him, on him.

He didn't know Hinata, he didn't. But he knew right then and there, just by looking in those eyes and seeing that relief, that they waited for each other without true judgment.

No matter what, they were going to be enough.

He didn't wish for a different soulmate.

Finally, they could feel anything other than overwhelmed.

The rest of the team didn't exist in that moment, not when his soulmate had just unfroze his heart, not when this incredibly warm but slowly cooling human was holding him so tight that Sakusa wanted even more.

So he did it, he took more and he lifted Hinata up easily, the smaller man's legs wrapping around his torso and continuing to cry as he wrapped his arms around Sakusa's neck. The only thing the once frozen spiker could do was take in the warmth, this relieving sensation rushing through his veins and hugging his heart.

"Kiyoomi!" Hinata cried, and already it would break Sakusa's heart if it was ever from sadness.

But no, no it couldn't be. Not this time, not when they first meet.

Because he knows, he knows without Hinata Shouyou even saying anything. 

Hinata's warmth was a burden and it just got lifted.

Sakusa smiled, really truly smiled, and nuzzled his now warm face into Hinata's neck. He ignored the gasps from his teammates who probably never expected him to be affectionate.

Well, this was his soulmate! He almost died without him! He was going to be affectionate whether everyone liked it or not and…

Ah…

Maybe that's why Bokuto and Atsumu were so affectionate. 

Whatever.

Hinata stopped his crying by now which was embarrassing since Sakusa had just begun to feel tears prick at his eyes. Try as he must, they wouldn't budge. Thankfully, they wouldn't fall either.

There he is. His soulmate. The one he's been waiting for.

"Thank you for coming back," he whispered once he pulled away from Hinata, lowering the man onto the ground. He took notice as the golden skin now faded into a softer tan, still bronze but less so. His hair, which was red, was now a calmer orange like it had been in highschool. Sakusa assumed his wet hair was now back to black. 

How did he remember Hinata had softer orange hair? Something about your soulmate appearing in front of you just made everything make sense, made you remember the small things. 

Hinata wiped his eyes and smiled bright, holding onto Sakusa's hand as he took a deep breath, like feeling cold was his first breath of fresh air as well.

"Wouldn't know what to do if I died without meeting you..."

Sakusa wanted to frown knowing his soulmate also almost died but uncharacteristically, he couldn't help but smile back and laugh at the reality of this all, how they had finally united after so far apart. They both almost died but they made it. 

He just wanted to know one thing.

"Why did you leave?"

Hinata grinned sheepishly, "had to take the risk."

"For?"

"Volleyball."

Dammit, Sakusa slapped his forehead. His soulmates a fucking idiot…

Shouldn't your health ma-

Well he was similar, actually.

They should work on this together, actually. When had he become reckless?

He sighed.

"Who would've thought?"

**Author's Note:**

> really hope u liked it its a lil rushed i barely worked on it but id like to contribute to the omihina tag yeah yeah


End file.
